This old essay on the history of a literary topos or theme is
modestly intended to recount the permutations of a tale from culture to
culture over the centuries. Because of its age, the article's
methodology predates the critical application of cultural and social
factors to works of literature and folk narrative, missing this aspect
of changes in the genre, merely describing the tales comparatively.
Nevertheless, this article is a useful summary of the genre of holy man
(i.e., hermit) discovering one holier (i.e., saint) than himself.

The folkloric type originates in Aryan Hindu India during the
transitional period when criticism of the rigid Vedic class structure
began.
The Mahabharata relates the
story of a brahmin meditating before his
home. A passing crane flies by and leaves its droppings on him. The
enraged brahmin curses the bird, and it falls dead from the sky. Later
that day, the brahmin seeks alms in the village and comes to an open
door. A busy housewife sees him at the door but continues her meal
preparation for her husband and family. When she finally goes
to the door, the angry brahmin scolds her. "Do you not know that I am a
brahmin and have special powers?" he says angrily. "I am no crane,
dear brahmin," the woman replies quietly, and goes on to defend her
chief duty
to her husband and family. The brahmin goes away humbled.

Here the brahmin learns that the virtue of a mere householder can
exceed that of a holy man. Of course, by modern literary standards, a
further point is class consciousness and the critique of the wealthy
and
arrogant exploiter of the householder class. The tale derives its
appeal from this angle, where theoretical virtue is not necessarily the
main concern of the author or the culture that preserved and fostered
such a tale.

The genre appears in Persia, then in Arab and Jewish versions, where
the
hero of the tale is a not a householder but a hunter, or a butcher --
low social ranks but
characters who care for their aged parents, tithe, give their meager
earnings to the poor, and even ransom a captive.

The virtue, notes author Gerould, is not in the magnanimous act
itself but in "the lesson that true goodness lies in the humble
performance of duty without outward show of piety." Thus the holy
figure is, to use New Testament language, the pharisaic, not the true
holy man. The characters
presented are socially humble as well as morally so.

But the second Arabian version, which is also
part of the Arabian Nights
anthology, presents a major shift of class
consciousness, representing a clear signal that the court has co-opted
the folk in social control of the folk genre. In this tale, no less
than a king is presented as the humble
protagonist.

A holy man, notes Gerould,

sets out to discover who is more worthy
of the protection of heaven
than himself and finds a king, who in the midst of outward splendor,
lives privately in great austerity with his wife, supporting himself by
the labor of his hands. Here we have in a fully developed form the type
which the influence of the church was to make predominant in Europe.

Indeed, the cycle now progresses full circle from India -- from the
critique of the power class to holding that power class in high esteem.
This last type is to be upheld by the Church because it proclaims
monarchical subordination to ecclesiastical authority, outlining the
correct behavior and relationship of kings to religious authority. At
this point, from India to Europe, the genre type has made a 180 degree
turn.

In Europe, the tale manifests in the Vitae Patrum, in no fewer than five
versions featuring the famous desert hermit Paphnutius. But the Vitae
Patrum was compiled in the 17th century, long after the last
genuine Paphnutius sources
had been identified, and the earliest sources contain nothing
scurrilous. In the first three stories, the
characters supposed to be more virtuous than the hermit are: 1) a
flute-player who later turns robber, 2) an admiral living with his wife
"in
some splendor, but honestly, charitably, and continently," and 3) a
merchant. While the tales are convenient for disparaging eremitism and
promoting the powerful, the last two tales reveal the contrivance of
all five: those better than the hermit are Pope Gregory the Great and
the bishop Severinus!

Here are other versions of the genre:

an Old French story, Provost of
Aquileia, written in the 15th
century by Jean Mielot, presents the provost or military-political
administrator
as better in virtue than the hermit because the hermit pursues
the provost's wife in several salacious adventures. The story is
clearly
anticlerical, and a farce intended to scandalize its readers. But
Gerould calls it an instance of "Gallic humor."

A version of Mielot appeared in northern England as "The Hermit and
Saint Oswald," first printed by the 15th-century Dominican John Herolt.
The story is identical to Mielot's, only substituting a king for the
provost and a known saint (Oswald) or at least the name for the
anonymous hermit of Mielot.
(Not unexpectedly, no historical sources on St. Oswald mention any of
this.)

Another genre piece is the 13th-century "Der gute Gerhard," a Middle
German poem by Rudolf von Ems. This version features Emperor Otto
seeking a counterpart in virtue and advised by heaven to emulate the
merchant Gerhard of Cologne. This version is identical to the butcher
as
holy stories in earlier Jewish tales -- except that instead of a hermit
or holy man seeking a virtuous counterpart, a king and merchant play
the roles -- both from powerful classes.

The Spanish romance "El Conde Lucanor" by Don Juan Manuel features a
hermit who discovers that his counterpart in virtue is Richard the
Lionheart, so identified because of his deeds of valor against the
Saracens.

The crowning work of this genre is the play "El Condenado por
Desconfiado" by the Spanish monk and dramatist Tirso de Molina
(1579-1648). The work has a far more complex and mature interpretation
and plot than previous approximations to the genre, and was influenced
by Counter-Reformation theology on morals. "Damned for Defiance" or a
similarly translated title for the play stands on its own historically. Gerould notes
that all the elements of Eastern and Paphnutian legend are here crafted
into
what the Spanish philologist and literary historian Ramon
Menendez-Pidal (1869-1968) called the "most splendid offshoot of the
genre." Here is a condensed plot summary:

Paulo the hermit prays to learn his counterpart in virtue, but is
answered by the devil, who recommends Enrico of Naples, whose only
virtue is that he cares for his aging father; he is otherwise known as
the worst criminal in the city. Paulo is scandalized by Enrico's crimes
but dutifully emulates Enrico by becoming a robber. Enrico flees the
city on murder charges. He encounters Paulo and joins Paulo's robber
band. But when Enrico reenters Naples to care for his father, he is
captured and condemned to death. His father persuades Enrico to
confess, and Enrico goes to heaven upon execution. Meanwhile, Paulo is
mortally wounded in a fight. He learns of Enrico's confession before
execution, but Paulo doubts God's grace. He dies, and goes to hell.

CONCLUSION

The "hermit and saint" folkloric genre pitting the holy man against
someone more virtuous was historically a critique against the powerful
classes disparaging the humbler classes. In Europe, however, the genre was
inverted to show the powerful to be more virtuous ("saint") than the
holy men ("hermit"), an inversion of religious values as well as of social order and
moral authority. The genre culminates ironically in the
contrivance of
the Vitae Patrum extending
and providing approbation of the inversion. The last major expression of
the genre is the sensitive moral drama of Tirso de Molina.